Evaluation Question 4- How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Question4- How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

First, using Blogger as a tool to help us with research and planning has been very beneficial for our work. Blogger has enabled us individually and in our groups post and publish all of our work. Consisting of everything from the research, planning, ideas, rough cuts ect. This allowed everyone to publish their personal experiences with everything that have created, whether they have had difficulty or whether they have found it beneficial. Blogger also help us keep track of everything we had to do and enabled us to tick off everything that we had completed. Throughout the process of creating all of our media products we used many different technologies to make sure we had the best products we could possibly created. By using different technologies it also meant that we could also trial and error different things and different technologies benefitted us in different ways such as, Photoshop. Photoshop allows us to experiment and do many different designs that helped us all reach our final decision. Photoshop was the main technology we used in creating our magazine advert and digipak. When creating our magazine advert we shot the photo on an iphone 7. The reason we used an iPhone 7 was because we didn’t have access to a camera so we used the best technology we could find. By using one of the latest iphone cameras it meant that we were able to get the best photograph possible from a smart phone. Now days because technologies inside smarts are so good you wouldn’t notice whether footage had been taken on a cinematic camera worth thousands or an iPhone. This has allowed us to get a good picture that we can use for our magazine advert and get a good result.  

Research and Planning-

Throughout the research and planning stage we didn’t use many technologies because we spent our time planning all of the ideas that have had and what we were looking to do for our video. We used the internet to brain story ideas such as researching flares and where to get them and whether or not we could use them in our shoot. Therefore, didn’t use many other technologies in the planning and research stage as there wasn’t much technology needed apart from using the internet to research location ideas, props ect. 

Construction-

The construction of the music video was were our  group used the most technologies. Throughout the shoot we used a combination of both the Sony A5100 and the iPhone 7 camera to film our music video. I feel that using the Sony A5100 has enabled us to get crisp Smooth shots through the video shoot, despite having to shoot in daylight and at night time. Using the Sony A5100 also enabled us to get the smooth and stead shots of the extras and the main cast walking into the party. It also enabled us to get old shots of the flares which meant that we could get the best quality footage possible for a smaller camera. Having a smaller camera also meant that we were able to get fully immersed within the shoot of the music video. In post production we used Final Cut Pro. The reason we decided to use Final Cut Pro was because we felt that it would be harder to use however, it would give us a better result. Final Cut Pro was a lot harder to use and was a little harder to get used to however I believe the reason we have a good music video is because we used Final Cut. Final Cut gave us many different options which mean that we could also trial an error through the process. This meant that we could all contribute ideas as a group and try them to see if they actually worked. This was a similar insolent with Photoshop when we were creating both our magazine advert and digipak. Photoshop was a little harder to use, but gave use to option to trailer and error to see what went well and what didn’t. 

Evaluation- We used many different technologies in the process of constructing our final products. I think as a group we worked well with each other when considering what types of technologies we should use and who knew the program best. We used Final Cut Pro which enabled us to get a professional finish however it was very difficult to use so we had to research into using it properly and how to get the best results. By using the best technologies it meant that we had more of a chance of getting the best result for example; using Photoshop, Final Cut and also using a Camera to film. This enabled us have the best chance at making a really good product because we were given access to the best technologies. Throughout the research and planning stages we have to rethink a few things for example; we wanted to film the flares scene in the middle of a country road but we simply weren’t able to do so safely. This is when we have to re-think where we were going to film it and film it in a field instead. This was good for us to think about locations and other things first before going around straight away and filming other wise we would have been left with a result that we wouldn’t have been proud of. We didn’t really use many technology while planning because we just brain stormed as a group and came up with the best decision between us all. 

Throughout the whole process of Researching, Planning and the construction of all three media products. We used the internet the most when researching, this was because we were brain storming our ideas and thinking about what props, locations and costumes we are going to use. Online research also enabled our group to see what has been done before with past music video’s and what could be done in the future with music video’s. This made sure that we were able to make our music video relevant and up to date with the time, making it most attractive to our target audience. The internet has also helped us through the whole process, from Start to Finnish. This has been through the continuous use of Blogger, the online site which has enabled us to post everything on their including; Research and Planning to the final products. We, as a group, have all worked together on a group blog but we have all gone away separately and done Individual blogs. This have enabled us to carry out our own research for ourselves and has also allowed us to post things on there that helped us with the whole process. We only used the Internet for this and the research and we used computer programmes for the rest. We used computer programme’s for the rest of the process. We different editing softwares to create the final video, digital and the magazine advert. We used Photoshop for the production process of the digital and the magazine advert because this was the best computer program as it allowed us to move freely and experiment with our work and change things as we went. This is how we managed to change things so easily and when we got audience feedback and teacher feedback we were able to quickly and easily change the digipak and magazine advert. We used Final Cut which was the best editing software to use for our music video as it gave us the best professional result. 

Technology really helped us in creating all three products because we used a plethora of different programs and technology to get the best result. We also thought that it really helped us especially in the time where music videos are getting better and better and are becoming more little short films. An example of technology helping us is also using an iPhone to film part of the music video as well as using a professional camera. We were able to do this because of the rise in technology. This enabled us to also shoot the magazine adverts with the same iPhone swell a get a good enough image for all three products. By using blogger it has also help us as we were able to upload everything as we go but not only that, we are able to look back on what we did and see where we have improve and also what we did to improve the products as we can see the steady increase in the quality of work. Technologies have also helped us because they have enabled  us to get the best results across al three products.